I don't understand the Starbucks-every-day thing. First of all, because that stuff is expensive. Why can't people buy a coffee maker and set it to
brew in the morning so when they wake up they have fresh coffee that costs a fraction of what Starbucks charges? Heck, you can even buy Starbucks
coffee and brew it yourself if it is a question of loving the brand.

Secondly, with everything they add in it, these coffees have a ton of empty calories. Here's a sampling:

For that last one, I could have a cup of coffee and 2 milky way chocolate bars for the same calorie count.

I know that people don't like to prepare their own foods anymore, but even my husband can prepare coffee, and he cannot even sweep the floor
properly. More laziness and giving away power to corporations.

Originally posted by oniraug
Cigarettes & alcohol still being legal. Nearly everyone does either one or both of these & its common knowledge they will kill you eventually or you
might get to be the lucky one who makes it to 100 yrs old smoking 4 packs a day with a bottle of whiskey.

This is why mostly no one cares about food that might kill you. They want to be the lucky ones and believe "It wont happen to me!" ... remember
hearing that one?

Who would want to live to be 100 anyway? I help take care of my 95-year-old grandmother and she is very lonely. She has outlived all her siblings, her
husband, her son, many of her close cousins, most of her friends and neighbors. It sometimes seems that living this long is a fate worse than death.
We take care of her and spend time with her, but she has very few peers left. Just sad.

What get's me is our education system....First off my 4th grader had to do a report on 9/11...You know how hard it was for me to help her with
that...She wasn't born than,(i was pregnant at the time) so they are feeding her the official story, and of course she is believing them. Why would
she doubt her teachers they know everything....

In my opinion "9/11 was a inside job!"
I ended up swallowing the official story for her....but I told her that when she was older we would talk about this.
I explained not everyone believed that Osama Binladen was the evil behind the towers collapsing...

Here is one from a Canadian perspective, our dollar is worth more right now and we live right on the Border with the US.

We would love to go spend our money there but you need a passport or an enhanced drivers license to do so.
You will also be detained for life without a phone call or lawyer is they don't like you at the customs booth.
Last I heard you folks are hurting bad with no jobs etc.

Good economic sense is to stop people at your border and make it very difficult to let them in to spend money.

Common Sense has been gone for quite
sometime now.
In my opinion, maybe 50 years or more.
But everyone should read the book.
Thomas Paine was a terrific writer.

If America still had common sense, our steel mills would still be roaring...
...America would still have an economy.
...Fiat money wouldn't even exist.
...CONgress would be in the black.
...Debt wouldn't be issued. If we didn't have the money, it wouldn't get done.

Originally posted by FissionSurplus
I have a few more:
-Mainstream media has been caught time and again being inaccurate, putting a spin on stories, and feeding us nonsense, and people still watch and
believe.

-Every election year, people crowd together to hear what a candidate has to say, believe it and vote based on their personal feelings (such as "I
could have a beer with this guy, so I'll vote for him"). Later that candidate breaks every campaign "promise", becomes an entirely different person,
and everybody feels betrayed and angry. Up comes another election, and people behave the same way all over again.

Great points.

If America had common sense, every congressman would strive to be like Ron Paul.
There's not many other people like him in CONgress these days.

If America had common sense, every president would actually help the nation.
Not bury it in debt and senseless wars.

Apparently we don't have much common sense.
Because all these things we can actually change if we all paid attention.

Really they made it as difficult for you guys as they made it for us to go to Canada. I thought you had it a bit easier than we did. I used to go to
TO all the time ,but I can't even go see my friends anymore cause of the stupid security at the border. Bloody jerks. I used to go to Canada all the
time. Now I have to spend money on a passport or enhanced liscence, or whatever that other stupid card is only to be treated like a criminal when I
try to return to my own country.

Really they made it as difficult for you guys as they made it for us to go to Canada. I thought you had it a bit easier than we did. I used to go to
TO all the time ,but I can't even go see my friends anymore cause of the stupid security at the border. Bloody jerks. I used to go to Canada all the
time. Now I have to spend money on a passport or enhanced liscence, or whatever that other stupid card is only to be treated like a criminal when I
try to return to my own country.

What a bunch of crap.

Agree here 100% I can't add to your post because you covered it all, we too have friends in Port Huron and they won't come here now and we can't go
there now.

Things were going good in the nineties, but then we elected a second Bush as POTUS, that is when sanity went out the _

Common sense in this country died, when people started to believe in a free market.

Seriously, the term is an oxymoron, and clearly anyone who buys into this concept has lost the forest because all the trees in the way. The whole
purpose of the market system is the exchange of goods and services. You are only free to participate in the market system, as long as you have
something to sell, goods or services, that someone wants to buy.

Cut Taxes for the Rich, and the money will trickle down!

REALLY? How did anyone buy this con? Thirty years later, and guess what people, WE are still waiting for the money to trickle down, but it's
flowing the other way.

It isn't bad enough, that with the worlds largest military budget, a small group of terrorists were able to attack our largest city and our military
headquarters, we have had 10 MILLION people cross our borders illegally. Again, on GWs watch. Of course plenty under RR and GH.

Originally posted by Taupin Desciple
for every problem there is a solution. You couldn't have posted any?

HOW would someone post a solution for a collapse of common sense?
Should I say that reality TV should be banned because it 'stupifies' people?
I can't do that.
How exactly does someone give another person a dose of common sense?
Education? You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.
If YOU know any solutions to the lack of common sense .. then please feel free to post.

It's not about "common sense". It's about corruption plain and simple. This lack of "common sense" is merely a sympotm of the
corruption disease.

If we simply make the act of bribing politicians, governmental officials, corporate executives, and media personalities an Act of Treason and
punishable as the same, you will see a hell of a lot of "common sense" return in short order.

Until then...enjoy the show. It's not often a sentient being gets a front row seat to their own extinction.

Things were going good in the nineties, but then we elected a second Bush as POTUS, that is when sanity went out the _

Common sense in this country died, when people started to believe in a free market.

Seriously, the term is an oxymoron, and clearly anyone who buys into this concept has lost the forest because all the trees in the way. The whole
purpose of the market system is the exchange of goods and services. You are only free to participate in the market system, as long as you have
something to sell, goods or services, that someone wants to buy.

Cut Taxes for the Rich, and the money will trickle down!

REALLY? How did anyone buy this con? Thirty years later, and guess what people, WE are still waiting for the money to trickle down, but it's
flowing the other way.

It isn't bad enough, that with the worlds largest military budget, a small group of terrorists were able to attack our largest city and our military
headquarters, we have had 10 MILLION people cross our borders illegally. Again, on GWs watch. Of course plenty under RR and GH.

Agreed. It defies all logic and the ACTUAL history of this very country.

Ever notice that the most fervent "believers" in the free market are almost all baby boomers? Not to say that all baby boomers are "believers" in
the free market...but you don't see a whole hell of a lot of Gen X'ers who rant endlessly about the evils of feeding hungry people.

Personally, I think the anti-commie brainwashing programs of the 50's and early 60's were so successful that the trance is still working to this
day. Factor in a Cuban Missile crisis and close call in the space race and it drove an entire generation of children completely out of their
minds.

Now "capitalism" isn't a system of economics...it's become a damn religion and suspended critical thinking appropriately.

I too am sick of people saying a cup of Starbucks cost $6. The $2 you cite is more accurate. While you can spend $6 for coffee at Starbucks, the
majority of people that go there do not. .I always try to get at the real truth of things, but most of the rest of the population is more than happy
to live with misconceptions and half-truths. I find it very depressing.

Really they made it as difficult for you guys as they made it for us to go to Canada. I thought you had it a bit easier than we did. I used to go to
TO all the time ,but I can't even go see my friends anymore cause of the stupid security at the border. Bloody jerks. I used to go to Canada all the
time. Now I have to spend money on a passport or enhanced liscence, or whatever that other stupid card is only to be treated like a criminal when I
try to return to my own country.

What a bunch of crap.

Here is the real question for you...why do people who often disagree with the logic, rationale, or morality of the orders they are given ACTUALLY
enforce this crap? Think about it...what is wrong with the border patrol or mounties or whatever at the gate that they ACTUALLY follow these kinds of
frickin' orders? Why DOES a US policeman go ahead and pepper spray peaceful demonstrators? Why is it that during WWI all of the soldiers on both
sides got out of there trenches for an unofficial and impromptu cease fire on Christmas Day and sworn enemies celebrated the holiday TOGETHER...and
then resumed killing one another on December 26th?

World peace arrives the day all of the worlds peasants stop following orders.

There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can't take part. You can't even passively
take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it
stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from

I don't understand the Starbucks-every-day thing. First of all, because that stuff is expensive. Why can't people buy a coffee maker and set it to
brew in the morning so when they wake up they have fresh coffee that costs a fraction of what Starbucks charges? Heck, you can even buy Starbucks
coffee and brew it yourself if it is a question of loving the brand.

Secondly, with everything they add in it, these coffees have a ton of empty calories. Here's a sampling:

For that last one, I could have a cup of coffee and 2 milky way chocolate bars for the same calorie count.

I know that people don't like to prepare their own foods anymore, but even my husband can prepare coffee, and he cannot even sweep the floor
properly. More laziness and giving away power to corporations.

Yes, but it's not accurate to compare a $6 Starbucks drink to a cup of home-brewed coffee as a potential substitute. The stimulants in a home brewed
coffee is a substitute for a Mountain Dew. Conversely, a couple of Starbucks per day is more analogous to being a replacement for straight-up
coc aine.

If you look at it that way, a couple hundred bucks a month in Starpickmeups is WAY cheaper than ol' Johnny Pickmeup is. In fact...it's a
downright bargain.

Now, if we 80% of the country didn't work 60 hours per week at jobs they hate I doubt there would be so many people compelled to augment their
nervous system with chemicals.

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